7. Butterfly

Tara Emsworth-Clarkson was my best friend in the world. Quinn, Aine, and Ava were too, but she and I had always been closest. When she announced she was pregnant, instead of feeling happy for her, I was jealous. Outwardly, I did my best to appear as thrilled as I should be, excited for her and her husband since I knew they’d been trying to have a baby for a while and she’d suffered a miscarriage in a previous pregnancy.

Still, I was the only unmarried one of our tribe. I was also the only one who either didn’t have a child or one on the way. I didn’t even have any prospects. Sure, Brand flirted with me and teased me about a possible future, but I’d known him long enough to understand he wasn’t the marriage-and-family type.

The first night we’d stayed at the beach, I thought for sure Brand and I would finally go beyond kissing. Maybe not have sex but at least make out for a while. Instead, after sitting on the chaise with his arms wrapped around me, he’d pecked my cheek and said we should call it a night.

It was obvious by the way his hardness had pressed against my bottom while I sat with my back to his front that he was as interested in sex as I was. Or maybe it was just having a woman’s body in his arms. Any woman. Not me specifically. He had just gotten out of prison.

But then, when the opportunity arose for him to act on his apparent desire, the physical excitement had waned.

Me? As long as I lived, I’d never forget the first kiss we’d shared. It had fueled my fantasies since the day it happened. Good night kisses from other men were ruined when I couldn’t help but compare them to Brand’s. Then, any sexual tension I’d hoped would materialize never did.

Was it that way for him with me? Was there someone from his past I didn’t measure up to?

When we approached the front desk of the hotel where we’d spent last night, I was crestfallen to hear the clerk say the same two-bedroom suite was available.

Two bedrooms. Two separate beds. We might talk for a while, maybe even sit on the chaise again, but then when one of us got sleepy, we’d return inside, he’d peck my cheek like he did last night, then disappear into one of the bedrooms and shut the door.

When he asked what weighed heavily on me, I couldn’t tell him it was that more than Tara’s pregnancy announcement. I was happy for her, but it just drove home the point that it had been months since I was on a date, and even Brand didn’t seem that interested.

When he’d teased, asking if he could keep me, what I should’ve said was, “Yes. In fact, you could take me now and never let me go.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked when we walked past the inn’s five-star restaurant.

“Are you?”

He grinned. “I asked you first.”

“Sure. I could eat.” We’d planned to have dinner at Kade and Merrigan’s, but when my four friends said they had to return to Cambria before it got much later, Brand and I begged off too. Our drive was longer than theirs, and that was only as far as the airport. Where we were now was ninety minutes beyond it.

“If you’d like to secure a table, I’ll ask the bellman to take our things to the room.”

I told him I would, but when I walked in and saw amorous couples seated at every occupied table, I considered turning around and suggesting we go anywhere else to eat. Preferably somewhere without a view of the ocean, a roaring fireplace, or dimmed lighting.

The market across the street would be ideal. We could pick up premade sandwiches, disappear into our separate rooms, and eat on our own. That was as far from romantic as I could think of.

“No tables?” Brand asked when he returned and I was still standing far enough away from the entrance that no one had asked if they could assist me.

“It looks awfully…” Could I say romantic? If I did, would he know what I really wanted to do was return to the room, strip off our clothes, kiss each other’s naked bodies, and nibble each other’s skin like he’d done to my neck last night.

“Penelope?”

With flushed cheeks, I stared into his eyes.

He wrapped his arm around me, pulled me into him, and rested his head against mine. “Do you know what it does to me when you look at me that way?”

“Which way?”

“Like you did the day we parted on the streets of Manhattan. Like you wanted me to kiss you.”

“What’s stopping you?”

His eyes bored into mine as if he was asking if I was serious. Rather than answer with words, I leaned up and kissed him.

He tightened the arm he had around me and pressed his tongue against my lips, requesting the entrance I willingly gave. His kiss was hard and demanding. Desperate—just like the first we’d shared. Unlike that one, it didn’t start out tentatively but had the same urgency, the same craving for possession. The ache between my legs, the desire I felt for him, was the same too.

When we heard a passerby clear his throat, I wondered if Brand would end the kiss, take his arm from around me, and walk away, leaving me alone again.

“What you do to me,” he whispered, kissing from my lips, across my cheek, to my ear.

I angled my neck to give him better access. “Are you still hungry?” I asked.

“Famished, in fact. But not for food, Butterfly. The hunger I feel is all for you. The tastes I crave are of your skin.” He leaned in and nipped my earlobe. “Tell me that’s what you hunger for, too.”

I put my hand on his cheek and brought my lips to his, devouring his mouth as I pressed my body against him. “I’m starving, Brand. All for you.”

He let go of my waist, but took my hand and led me to the elevator, where he repeatedly pressed the call button.

“I don’t think it makes it come any faster.”

His arm went around my waist again, and he jerked me against him. “I implore you to refrain from making any references that could possibly be construed as sexual. The thread by which I’m hanging onto my constraint is about to break.”

We heard the ding and moved to the side to let the other guests exit. When we stepped on alone, Brand hit the button to close the door several times like he had the call button. As it finally shut, he spun around and pressed me against the back wall.

Brand’s frenzied excitement heated my blood and drenched my panties. With one hand, he grasped my wrists and held them. With the other, he reached under my sweater, pushed it out of his way, and cupped my breast. When he pinched the nipple between his thumb and forefinger, I hissed and arched my back, trying to align my pussy with his rigidity.

All too soon, the elevator came to a stop. I checked, relieved to see it was on our floor rather than another, where we’d no longer be alone once the door opened.

“God, Pen,” Brand said, kissing me once more before leading me down the hallway to our room.

Once inside, he threw the lock, put his hands back on the hem of my sweater, and raised it over my head.

“Don’t,” he said when I reached behind me to unfasten my bra. “Let me. Allow me the pleasure of experiencing everything I’ve fantasized doing to your body.”

“What about me? Do I get to do the things I’ve fantasized about?”

With a low growl, Brand captured my mouth again with his. Our lips collided with the same level of urgency, the same need for possession as earlier. His tongue pushed its way inside, claiming me in the same way I wanted to claim him.

My clit throbbed when he bent his head and sucked my nipple through the lace of my bra. “Do you like that, Butterfly?” he asked before moving to my other breast.

When I moaned wordlessly, Brand pulled away. I leaned forward to kiss him, but he stepped back. “I need your words. Tell me you like what I’m doing to you.”

“I love it. Please don’t stop.”

He smiled. “That’s better. I want to hear you plead for what you want, Penelope. If you don’t, you might not get it.”

If anyone but Brand had said those words to me, I would’ve pulled away and told him I’d never do that for anything. If he wanted me, it would be by my rules, on my terms.

But with this man, I was ready to fall to my knees, beg him to make me his, and never let me go.

“Please touch me,” I pleaded.

“Where?”

I took his hand and put it between my legs.

“Open your jeans for me.”

I couldn’t think, let alone get my zipper to work. Finally, he took over, pushing them past my bottom and down to my knees. He knelt, bringing my panties lower too, then cupped me.

“God, you are so fucking wet.”

The keyword was fucking, which I wished he’d hurry up and do. “Brand, I need you inside me,” I said, remembering that if I didn’t ask, I might not get what I wanted.

He pushed my jeans to the floor, and I stepped out of them and my flats at the same time. “Spread for me.”

I didn’t hesitate.

“More.”

When I did, he pressed a finger inside me and brushed across my clit with the pad of his thumb.

“Please don’t tease me,” I begged.

In response, he licked through my folds, pressing the tip of his tongue like a finger to my button of nerves. He swirled it, then deepened his thrusts.

“I’m so close,” I moaned, grinding myself against his hand.

“So bloody tight. So hot,” he murmured, increasing the pressure of his tongue as though he was devouring my pussy, and thrust harder with his fingers.

Just as I felt myself about to explode, Brand withdrew his hand and backed away, but he kissed the flesh on the inside of my thighs.

“Why…did…you…stop?” My words were stuttered, whiny.

Without answering, he stood, lifted me in his arms, and carried me into the bedroom. After gently setting me against the pillows, I watched his clothes, piece by piece, land on the floor. I let my eyes drift down his length, longing to lick the lines of his rock-hard abs and trail my lips down to his erect cock when it jutted out, finally released from the confines of his trousers.

It had been long enough since I’d last had sex that I momentarily worried whether his length would be too much for me.

He stroked himself, and I ran my tongue over my lips at the same time he pushed my legs apart and settled between my thighs. He ripped the foil of a condom I had no idea he had in his hand and rolled it over himself.

“Tell me what you want, Butterfly,” he said, nudging his cock at my entrance.

“Fuck me, Brand.”

He raised a brow and didn’t move.

“I’m begging you to fuck me. I need you. God, I’ve needed you forever.” I worried I’d gone too far, said too much, but when Brand guided himself inside, stretching me, I could no longer think.

“You feel so good. So perfect. Just like I imagined.”

“Did you?”

“Every moment of every day,” he responded, pushing deeper until he could go no farther. I tried to move, but he stilled me and gazed into my eyes. “I can’t be gentle.”

I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. “I don’t want you to be.”

“Are you asking? Are you begging me to take you hard and fast?”

Before I could answer, he pulled back so the tip of his cock rested at my entrance, then plunged back in with a deep thrust.

“Breathe, Butterfly.”

I exhaled the air I hadn’t realized I was holding in when his hands clamped my hips and he slid slowly out, then thrust back in again. He did this enough times in a row that I was right back on the edge.

“Make me come. Please. I’m begging you.”

The frenzy from earlier returned, and Brand let loose, holding me to him as he repeatedly slammed into me. His eyes burned into mine as we both teetered on the precipice. He thrust twice more, squeezed my clit between his fingers, and I shattered, contracting around his cock with my pussy until he threw his head back and pulsed inside me.

“Please, Brand,” I pleaded, knowing if he moved at all, I’d explode with another orgasm.

He rotated his hips, and I rode the crashing waves of pleasure that seemed never-ending. When I floated back to earth, I opened my eyes and looked into his.

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’m going to paint you like this. Your head thrown back in ecstasy, dew on your flushed skin, my name on your lips,” he murmured.

I was far from a prude, but I’d never considered allowing someone to paint me in the nude, let alone right after I came.

“You like that idea,” he said when another gush of wetness drenched him and I squeezed his cock.

“I do.”

“You’ll have to beg, you know.”

I would. I would do anything, say anything, promise anything if he’d only make me feel this way again.